Category: Facebook

I don't know if you've noticed, but a few months ago the hit television show Dexter got it's own social game you can play on Facebook, named Slice of Life. Similar kinds of branded social games have been done before, but it's something else that's interesting this time. This game changes according to the plot of the television series each week. That's right, the show and the game are coexisting and evolving together to bring users a totally new type of experience. And while most technology blogs, obsessed with social, said Slice of Life is a revolutionary new type of a social game, I asked myself: is it rather a new revolutionary type of consuming television?

Lately I've been noticing an interesting trend in local advertising. Billboards all across Slovenia started to display Facebook icons or even links to Facebook pages. Since Slovenia is a few years behind in adopting new marketing approaches, this came as a bit of a surprise, it may have even produced a bit of patriotic pride. Look at that, advertisers have finally started to see the potential in digital and social, looks like we are not that out after all.

Social is a funny thing. Some get it, some don't, it's been around since ever (remember forums?) and it keeps evolving with a maddening pace. While there used to be a giant barrier between social and not social, this barrier is slowly disappearing, and the last of the old boys finally admitted it's competing against Facebook and not Microsoft. Google has had problems with providing a social service. But wasn't social potential always there to conquer, only not really noticed? Not inside their failed social projects like Buzz and Wave (and Google Me?), but there, in the core of their services?

A lot has happened in the field of share buttons in the past year: Google +1 button for web pages was introduced, Facebook started to migrate the Share and Like buttons, TweetMeme button is slowly getting replaced by the offical Tweet button, etc. Enough to make maintenance of these buttons a pain in the ass. But since social activity is getting more and more important for SEO, this needs to be done, one way or another. To make it easier, I've put together a comprehensive list of different share widgets, together with some explanation, sample code and direct links to full documentation.

Looks like the time for classic search and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is slowly running out, waiting to be replaced by more advanced and efficient algorithms than mathematical - human powered. The Facebook Like button, the Twitter retweet button and other social share widgets are on the uprise, and Google is fighting back with all its might. For now, their business model relies heavily on search (other project like Android and Chrome too), but their future social success was named the number one priority by the new old CEO Larry Page.